Do You Know What the First Sony Product Was?

Ever wonder what the first Sony product was? Despite what you may have heard, it was not the Walkman (July 1, 1979) or Japan’s first tape recorder (Type-G in mid 1950). Instead, the first product by Sony was for less electronic than we would think of today though far more delicious than anything Sony has produced in decades.

So what was the first product which is pictured above? We reveal what it is after the jump.

According to Sony, before the company would become Sony

Masaru Ibuka’s (later Sony co-founder) first step into the world of consumer electronics was an electronic rice cooker. You may be wondering why you’ve never seen this in the market. Unfortunately that’s because the device consistently either undercooked or overcooked rice. It seems the ability to cook rice was an important factor in a rice cooker and so the product failed to be a commercial success…

If Samsung can pump out dishwashers and fridges, why can’t Sony make rice cookers? Just imagine a rice cooker from Sony in 2015. Likely powered by Android, it would feature NFC for easy pairing with their latest devices so you can easily sync new recipes. Sony would likely tap into their image sensor division to include built in camera sensors to better detect the texture of the rice so you can easily and accurately adjust your recipe from sticky rice to something more delicate. Ultimately, I’d imagine a 4K camera would allow you to easily snap pictures of your meal with the ability to upload them to Instagram and Facebook.

By the way, if you think I’m making this stuff up, something not too far from this already exists. I present you, June.